Abel Lujan is seen in court Dec. 17, 2013, at the Boulder County Justice Center. Lujan is facing prosecution in the 1999 strangulation death of Bernie Frost, his girlfriend at the time she was killed and left in a walkway between 1303 and 1309 Coffman St. in Longmont. (Matthew Jonas / Longmont Times-Call)

A 30-year-old Longmont woman found dead on the 1300 block of Coffman Street in April 1999 suffered internal injuries so severe that they are most typically seen in victims of car wrecks, plane crashes, or falls, according to the retired medical examiner who conducted her autopsy.

John Meyer testified in Boulder District Court on Wednesday afternoon during a preliminary hearing for the woman's ex-boyfriend, Abel Lujan, 46, who is facing a first-degree-murder-after-deliberation charge in her death. Meyer said Bernie Frost suffered liver lacerations and internal bleeding that would have killed her quickly, but he ultimately ruled that she died of asphyxia due to strangulation.

"This type of thing, probably most often, I would have seen in violent traffic accidents, falls from a height, airplane crashes," Meyer said of the liver injuries and internal bleeding. He said he believed Frost died of manual strangulation, though, before the internal bleeding could claim her life.

Boulder District Judge Andrew MacDonald determined prosecutors have probable cause to continue their pursuit of the murder charge and that the evidence is strong enough to hold Lujan without bond. That threshold is higher than probable cause, but lower than beyond a reasonable doubt. MacDonald said the prosecutors provided evidence to meet that burden. He set arraignment for April 29.

During Meyer's testimony, prosecutor Fred Johnson asked him if the injuries he found on Frost could have been inflicted from punches or kicks. The medical examiner testified it was possible and that other injuries, including bruises on her arms, appeared to have been suffered just before death.

Lujan had been suspected in Frost's death for years, but was only arrested in the case in December 2013. Longmont police reopened the cold case in 2011.

Lujan (Matthew Jonas / Longmont Times-Call)

Witnesses were reinterviewed, evidence was submitted for forensic analysis, and a statewide cold case commission reviewed the case. The new investigation resulted in the warrant for Lujan.

As he was escorted into Boulder District Judge Andrew MacDonald's courtroom on Wednesday afternoon he yelled out, "Framed! I was framed!" He calmed down after his attorneys asked him to keep quiet and Lujan did not say anything else out loud.

Longmont Police Detective Edward Tinkum testified that Frost and Lujan, who had been a couple for three to four months prior to her death, attended a gathering together at the complex that included alcohol and cocaine the evening before her body was discovered. Witnesses told police that Lujan physically abused her during their relationship and once threatened to "put her 10 feet under" and told her that she didn't deserve to live.

The detective said those at the gathering recounted tense moments between Lujan and Frost over the course of the evening, but notably when she asked him if se could reveal his "dark secret" and again as they left the apartment that night.

One of party's attendees found her body the next morning, while another reported hearing screaming outside after the couple left. Frost was lying on her back in the snow and unnaturally held a beer bottle, according to Sgt. Jim Bundy, who also testified during the hearing. He said her body appeared to be staged.

Tinkum also said that a former cell mate of Lujan's said that Lujan confessed to the murder to him.

DNA from the beer bottle matched Lujan's, according to testimony offered on Wednesday afternoon.

Several of Frost's family members, who for years returned to Longmont to distribute fliers seeking new evidence in her death, attended the afternoon hearing.

Defense attorney John Gifford argued that prosecutors failed to show that Lujan had engaged in any deliberation and that he was not seen with her after leaving the apartment.

"What we have to today is Mr. Lujan was the last one seen with her, there are no eye witnesses," Gifford said.

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